


The Missing Cell Phone

by Jessi_Knight



Series: Moments [2]
Category: The Fosters (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4373057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessi_Knight/pseuds/Jessi_Knight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(April 6th, 2013; a couple months before the show started) - Mariana's cell phone's died, and it's also lost, and her twin brother, Jesus, is the one to blame. Stef and Lena do parenting stuff to set things right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Missing Cell Phone

10:37 am, Saturday, April 6th, 2013

"Sometimes, I really don't get you at all." Mariana accused her brother as she searched the living room for her cell phone.

"What? What'd I do this time?" Jesus asked as he got up from the couch to get out of her way.

"Oh, you know what you did." Mariana replied distractedly, kneeling down to look between the cushions. "Don't bother denying it."

Jesus sighed. "You know, fine, whatever. Be that way." He turned and walked towards the kitchen, intent on finding chips or something.

Mariana made a loud aggrieved sort of groan. "Sometimes having a brother is just so impossible." She lamented to herself and the empty room as she got down on her hands and knees to look under the couch next, having had no luck upturning the couch cushions.

"I heard that, you know." Jesus called out from the other room.

"Good!" Mariana called back throwing a pillow in the general direction of the kitchen, lamenting that there was no chance it would actually hit her target. Usually, she and her twin got along fine, really great even, you know? The last week though, he just kept doing things. Annoying things. This was just the latest. And he seemed to be just completely determined to act all oblivious boy about all of them. Really annoying.

The phone wasn't under the couch. She felt tired all of the sudden and sat against the couch on the floor and laid her head back on the askew couch cushion. "Life is so unfair."

Footsteps next and Mariana looked over to see one of her moms come into view. "Oh, hey mom."

"Hey yourself." Stef Foster replied, coming over and moving the coffee table out of the way a little so she could sit cross-legged on the floor next to where her daughter was. "So, I'm sensing there's a problem of some kind? Or did you just decide that you want to be the Tasmanian Devil when you grow up and this is all your less than subtle way of practicing for the day you encounter Bugs Bunny in real life?"

Mariana giggled a little. "Sometimes I forget how you're good at jokes." She said, raising her head from the couch cushion and sitting up straighter. "I'm sorry, about, you know. This." Mariana told her, feeling kind of sheepish all of the sudden and realizing she might have taken her phone search just a little too far.

"It's okay. The world's an unfair place, I seem to recall someone saying. I'll just have to live with it, right?" Stef replied easily. Privately she wasn't really that happy about it, but she had enough mom experience to know that you had to pick your battles. You only had so much credibility, really. If you used it on the small stuff, you kind of blew your chances on the trust front. Trust was key. You could never have enough, and it was always a battle to keep what you had where a teenager was concerned. Which Mariana was. She'd be 15 next month, in fact. Where did the time go?

Mariana smiled. "I'll clean it up, I promise." She told her.

"And I appreciate that." She replied. See? Now there's where it paid to bide your time and be an easy going mom sometimes, Stef quietly congratulated herself. She knew she wasn't going to beat Lena in the 'cool mom' competition, not that there was a competition like that really, but she had aspirations of at least narrowing the gap a little more. It had been kind of a shock to her when she'd first realized the gap existed. It had with Mike too, actually. So she knew the role, but, somehow she'd thought it would be different with Lena. It was different though, just not as different as she might have thought it would be. At least not about this. It was just, tough calls had to be made sometimes. Thankfully not today though. "Want to tell me what's wrong?" She asked.

"Lost cell phone." Mariana replied simply.

"Have you tried calling it?" Stef asked.

"Gee no, I never would have thought of that." Mariana said softly, looking accusingly towards the kitchen and wishing mildly dark things on her brother's head again. "Um, sorry, yes." She looked back to her mom. "It's not charged, so it won't ring." She told her, feeling the defeat.

"And I take it you somehow think it's your brother's fault that it's not?" Stef asked.

"It is!" Mariana countered. "It totally is."

"Why?" Stef asked.

Mariana sighed. "Well, see, I left it charging last night, over there where I normally do." She pointed over to a lamp stand that conspicuously had a bicycle helmet on the floor next to it.

And so the mystery was coming into focus. "Let me guess, you think the helmet did it?" Stef ventured.

"Well, the boy who put the helmet there anyway." Mariana replied.

"Any proof of the boy's culpability in the matter?" Stef asked, using her mad cop skills. That's what they called it, right 'mad skills'?

"It was on top of the charger when I went to get my phone this morning." Mariana answered. "He's guilty all right, don't doubt me on this mom."

"Uh-huh. And the lost phone happened how?" Stef asked.

"I lose my phone sometimes!" Mariana answered. "It happens. I'm more careful about it when I'm at school or whatever, but I get, you know, distracted by stuff."

"Uh-huh." Stef replied. "So, where'd you see it last?"

"It still had some charge in it, and I had to talk to Lexi. She's coming over later, you know, for the project?" Mariana told her. 

Her daughter making a book report on 'To Kill A Mockingbird' sound a lot more important to the fate of the world than Stef suspected it actually was. Most likely she was more looking forward to the fact that Lexi was coming over than what she was coming over for anyway. Teenage girls. She had been one herself at one point, hadn't she? She liked to think so anyway. It seemed like such a far off country sometimes though, didn't it? "The book report, you mean. Why didn't you just use the land line?"

"I don't have her number memorized." Mariana answered.

"So, you could have looked it up on your phone and written it down, you know." Stef said.

"Oh... I hadn't thought of that." Mariana admitted, feeling kind of dumb now. Blind spots happened though. You know, to everyone. You shouldn't feel bad about them, she believed that.

"Well, now you know for next time." Stef replied. "So, what happened with the phone next?"

"Oh, um, right. Well, so, I talked to Lexi for a while about stuff, and the charge went out." She said. "Then it was breakfast. I um, well I don't really know where it went after that. I think I put it in my pocket or something maybe? I... I don't really know. I meant to put it back on the charger, honest." She told her.

"Have you looked in the kitchen?" Stef asked.

"Yeah..." Mariana answered.

Lena came in then. "Mariana?" She asked. "Oh, hey there." Lena laughed a little and smiled to them, meeting her wife's eyes a moment. "What are you two doing down there on the floor?"

"Planning phone retrieval strategies, if you must know." Stef replied with an easy smile.

"Oh, well, funny thing that." Lena said, holding out Mariana's phone in her hand.

Mariana gave a yelp of excitement and got up off the floor, grabbed the phone and hugged Lena. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You rock, moms." She said, going over to grab the phone charger. "I'm putting this in my room today, okay?" She said protectively over her shoulder, holding the phone to her like it was a baby bird that had fallen from it's nest. She really did love that she had a cell phone now, Stef was aware. "Don't worry, I'll put it back before bed." She rushed out of the room and up the stairs. It was a house rule that the kids couldn't have their cell phones in their rooms after 10 pm.

"Just remember to clean up. Soon!" Stef called after her.

"I will! Don't worry!" Mariana called back.

"When she says 'don't worry' that's when I worry the most." Stef said jokingly.

"Did you just quote Pokémon?" Lena asked.

"What can I say, the line kind of stuck with me somehow." Jesus and Mariana had liked to watch Pokémon at one point. It was inevitable that you picked up some of the language, being a mom. Still, Pokémon had been a blessing, comparatively. She was convinced she probably still had a mild case of P.T.S.D. from all those Power Rangers episodes Brandon had watched as a boy. Japanese children's programming was a bad thing. That, she would not be dissuaded upon.

"I'll bet." Lina replied, coming over to her and offering Stef a hand up.

Stef took the hand and got herself up. "So where'd you find it, anyway?" Stef asked curiously.

"Clothes hamper." Lena replied, pulling Stef in for a little of a kiss.

"Mm. Figures." Stef replied, smiling and looking into her wife's eyes. Days like this, you know, just the normal ones, it struck her just how lucky she was.

Lena kissed her again, a little longer this time. "I was going to make tea?" Lena offered.

"Sold." Stef answered, letting Lena take her hand and lead her towards the kitchen.

There was a medium size crash involving something metallic from that direction before they got there though.

"Sorry. I'll fix it!" Jesus called.

Stef shook her head and Lena giggled just a little bit.

"Once more, into the breach, dear wife?" Lena asked.

Stef laughed. Sometimes she forgot how Lena was good at jokes.

\--------

end

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